Paha Sapa, the Black Hills, the “Heart of Everything That Is,” is considered sacred by the Oceti Sakowin Oyate (People of the Seven Council Fires), comprised of the Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota nations. Paha Sapa is the place of emergence for many Indigenous nations, and where the Buffalo first migrated through Buffalo Gap onto the plains.

Wind Cave

There are countless places of ceremony and prayer that have been held in trust for future generations since time immemorial, including Wind Cave, the place of emergence. While a visitor center (managed by the National Park Service) provides storyboards that explain the cultural significance of the site, South Dakota Native Tourism Alliance (SDNTA) envisions that these cultural narratives and creation stories will also be told to the general public in a more traditional and culturally appropriate manner. 

Frank Kills In Water, Chairman of SDNTA, reminds everyone that these creation stories were passed down from generation to generation through oral tradition by storytellers. Still today, Oceti Sakowin people aspire to tell their stories in their own voices, with the vocal rhythms, timing, tone, intonations, and all the storyteller’s physical gestures; they do not want people to learn these stories solely from reading a signboard or as written text translations. 

For this reason, SDNTA has begun training guides who can share their Native histories and creation stories. One of those guides is Tianna Yellow Hair (Oglala Lakota/Northern Cheyenne), a SDNTA board member who owns Tatanka Rez Tourz, a licensed Native-owned and operated tour guide service on the Pine Ridge Reservation. In this way, Oceti Sakowin people have begun renewing and sharing their own histories and culture.

National parks and forest lands were traditionally the homelands of Native peoples throughout the continents now known as the Americas. Most, if not all, Indigenous creation and emergence stories are connected to a particular place, mountain, river, valley, or place of emergence where events in creation stories have taken place. Many of these places are still considered culturally and spiritually significant such as Maka Oniye “breathing earth," or what has become known today as Wind Cave. As we visit these lands, let us remind ourselves and remember their cultural and spiritual significance, for as they say in Lakota, “Taku ole ca iyeye,” “What you seek, you shall find.”

Leon Aliski, PhD is a cultural historian, BFC Buffalo Backbone Supporter, and project manager for Dean Runyan Associates, a firm that specializes in travel research. He attended the South Dakota Native Tourism Alliance Quarterly Meeting and Tourism Forum (November 12-13, 2024), hosted in partnership with Crazy Horse Memorial.